


The Angel Speaks

by starstruck1986



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 08:47:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/733776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstruck1986/pseuds/starstruck1986
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Warnings: Implied min. character deaths, angst, mentions of torture, rape and abuse. First person POV.<br/>Prompt: 071: Broken</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And The Angel Spoke

_That_ is not my brother.  
  
I mean, it is, but it isn't, because Ron doesn't sit with slouched shoulders (for fear of being shouted at by mum) with a blank expression (for fear of having his intelligence knocked by any one of us evil older brothers) and his hands folded neatly in his lap (because... just because.)  
  
It _is_ Ron, though, because mum's too dead to shout, the others are too dead to mock and Ron can't hear me when I suggest that he doesn't have to sit so formally around me.  
  
He might as well be dead too.  
  
I hate this place. The too-clean smell of the air, the pastel colours of the walls, the stiffness of the bedding. Ron doesn't belong here, if you ask me. If you ask the law, though, it's a different story.  
  
I sigh and shift in my seat and his eyes fall on me, assessing the sudden movement I made. He hates sudden movements and I grimace at him; I should have known better. The left corner of his mouth twitches, perhaps in a forgiving smile. His facial expressions have melted away with his sanity, and all that is left of my baby brother is a shell of what used to be, pale and frightened.  
  
Fuck them all to hell and back. He's hurt enough. This place does him no good at all; they wrap him up in cotton wool, talk to him in hushed voices and cut his food up for him because they don't trust him with a knife.  
  
I haven't told them that Ron once gave Fred four puncture marks in his left thigh for stealing a roast potato off his plate. Somehow, I want him to have that out if he finds the mind to take it.  
  
“Charlie.”  
“Mm?” I murmur, too slow to take the softness of my given name for what it is -very unusual.  
  
Ron hasn't spoken for weeks. He sort of smiles and he sort of nods sometimes, but he doesn't speak. One hand lifts and his fingers, the bones which are wasted now, stretch towards the table at the end of his bed which holds a plastic jug of water.  
  
“Oh, drink?” I realise aloud, and push out of my chair to get it for him.  
  
I pour him a glass (plastic, of course) and hold it until I'm sure that he has a firm grip on it. He looks at me with what I can imagine is gratitude before he gulps it back, water which has to be warm. Before I can help myself, I crouch in front of him and pick up his free hand. I lace my fingers through his and squeeze; I successfully steal his attention from the cup.  
  
“Ron.” I make myself smile. “What do you want to do today?”  
  
The usual careless shift of his shoulders comes, which says 'I don't know' and I bite hard on the inside of my cheek. My grip is growing tighter on his hand but I can't stop myself. I need this connection with him. I take the cup out of his hand with my free one and then hold that too, stretching out his arms as our combined fingers settle on his knees. I wait, hoping he will say something else.  
  
“Out,” he whispers.  
  
Surprised, I look at him. “Really? Okay, well, I need to get permission from your Healers but they're here, so shouldn't be a problem! Where do you want to go?”  
  
I can hear the excitement rising in my voice and know I should reel it in -I could scare him into changing his mind. It's happened before. Ron says nothing else and I get up; he doesn't let go of my hands.  
  
“Release me, oh fair one,” I tease lightly. “For I must away to ask permission to take you for a once about the park.”  
  
The park should be nice for him, it's warm outside and maybe we can go and feed the ducks.  
  
I turn away, trying not to vomit about the fact that I'm going to take my grown up brother to go and feed the ducks like a three-year-old, just to get him some fresh air.  
  
“Don't want to go to the park.”  
  
I freeze. He never speaks this much.  
  
“Well where d'you want to go then?” I ask, reaching for the door handle.  
“Home.”  
“What?” I choke on my own speech.  
“Home,” Ron says simply. “Home. With you. For good.”  
  
Sick actually hits the back of my throat and my knees, strong and hairy, start to knock. I force myself to turn around and look at him and he hasn't moved, still sitting with an earnest expression, staring at me.  
  
“Ron.” My voice is broken, in pieces, just like him. “Ron, you have to stay here. It's... it's the law.”  
  
His brow creases slightly. “Why?”  
“I know you don't remember.” I bite my lip, trying to decide if I should tell him what happened to land him in hospital hell for the rest of his life. “You... you're not well.”  
  
His state now is a vast improvement to how he was a year ago -when he couldn't dress himself, when someone had to hold the cup when he drank, when a simple word caused him to dissolve into tears. I spent so many nights on the floor of this room, listening to him scream during his nightmares, and when he woke up he'd keep on screaming, body rigid with fear.  
  
I wish I could say I killed the man that did this to him, that ruined his mind and turned him into nothing better than a child. I wish I could say that when I tried, I had succeeded.  
  
I've thought about hunting him down and giving out what he deserves, but if it goes wrong, Ron will have nobody then. Someone has to be here to mop up his face when it gets too much and pretend that a grudge didn't see him tortured for hours, raped, and left for dead. They call him 'the lucky one', because he survived.  
  
I think I would rather have died.  
  
“Please take me home.”  
  
Oh, now he's done it. He's asked me, his eyes have begged.  
  
Fuck you, Ron.   
  
“Fine, I'll take you home,” I grind out, balling my hands into fists.


	2. Spirits In The Air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Implied suicidal thoughts. First person POV.  
> Prompt: 055: Spirit

Thank Godric for Auntie Muriel.  
  
Ron always hated her, and I'm not sure how he'd feel now if he knew the house he stood in used to be hers. House is a bit of an overstatement. It's a low stooped cottage in the middle of nowhere in the French countryside. I'm pretty sure it's lopsided. I can't speak French. Ron can barely speak English.  
  
Oh, we're so fucked.  
  
I wonder if they've noticed he's gone yet. Getting out was easier than I thought it would be. We just left as if we were going to the park, and as soon as we got out of sight of the hospital, I yanked him into a back alley and apparated as far away as I could possibly think of.   
  
I am shattered. I had to side-along him all the way to France. I'm good, but sometimes I think I should remember that I failed the apparition test first time round and actually, I'm not that good after all.  
  
“You alright?” I ask quietly in Ron's direction. “What do you think?”  
“It's nice. Cold though.”  
“Oh.” I point my wand at the fire place and shoot flames at it. They're crap, what with my tired magic, but they'll build enough to warm us up. I hope. “Come and sit down, Ron. Tired?”  
“No...” he shakes his head.  
  
The difference in his speech and animation is shocking. Already he's said more to me in the past few hours than he could manage in a fortnight at the hospital.  
  
“I'll need to go out later and get some food for us.” I throw myself down on the settee in front of the fire. The warmth licks at my feet, a sign that the fire is already growing. I drop my head onto the back cushions and close my eyes, hoping that the room will stop spinning with the darkness.  
  
I say nothing as the springs of the sofa creak as they take the weight of another. I say nothing as the warmth of Ron's body seeps into my skin, or as the smell of him, slightly tainted by hospital cleanliness, fills my nostrils. His cheek rests on my shoulder. His arms curl around my waist.  
  
I want to ask him what the fuck he's doing, but I don't have the energy -and this is the first hug Ron has instigated with _anybody_ since his 'accident'.   
  
“Thanks, Charlie.”  
  
The whisper is almost inaudible, but I catch it. Fingers capture my own and hold them; I leave them there.  
  


* * *

  
  
“You've got to stop doing this.” I know he isn't listening to me.  
  
It's the middle of the night. None of the candles are lit. The house is freezing and he should be in bed, resting. I lean over him and pick my wand up off the table. I keep finding him this way, sitting in the kitchen, wand on the table, and him staring at it. It scares me. He could be thinking anything –and I think I know what he's thinking.  
  
“I'm going to start sleeping with it down my pants,” I declare rattily, and throw myself down next to him at the table.  
  
Only when I look at him do I notice the tear tracks on his cheeks.  
  
“Ron...” I say, much more softly. “You didn't wake me up.”  
“Wanted to be 'lone.”  
  
I don't understand that. He's spent the last year locked in his own mind -how can he stand it, to say nothing, to be alone?   
  
“Why do you always take my wand? What good will it do you? You know you can't do magic.”  
“I know.” Ron stares at the table. “But I can try.”  
“What are you trying to do?” I ask, nonplussed in my tiredness.  
“You don't want to know.”  
  
I have an idea. It's an idea I try not to think about because frankly it makes this big, burly dragon keeper want to curl up into a tiny ball and sob. With that idea comes the truth that without Ron, I am the last one left, and without him, I will be truly alone.  
  
“I'm going to hide my wand every night,” I tell him.  
  
All he does is breathe in response.   
  
“Do you feel them?” Ron asks me finally. I see his throat working hard to swallow.  
“Feel what?”   
“Spirits.” He looks around him. “In the air. They're everywhere.”  
  
I stare at him. I've done the wrong thing, stealing him away from the hospital. I can't cope with this element of his illness and have never had to before. I can't bloody take him back now though. It'd finish him off.  
  
“Spirits of who?” I ask awkwardly, pawing at the floor with my bare foot.  
“People you want to see.”  
“Me?”  
“You miss them.”  
“I-”  
“You want things the way they were.”  
“Don't you want that too?” I ask desperately; I want the focus off me.  
  
Ron doesn't answer.  
  
“There's no point in wanting what you can't have.” The words slip from my tongue. “I want you well again, and hope that day in, day out. But it can't happen, things can't go back to the way they were. So I'll take what we have now and make do with it. Like it, if I can.”  
  
“I miss them,” Ron says blandly, and bows his head.  
  
I go to him, because really, what else can I do? He deserves to be held, to be comforted, after everything he went through. He moulds into me without boundaries, gripping the back of my t-shirt tightly in his fist.  
  
“Don't make me go back,” he whispers into my ear. “Promise.”  
“Promise you won't go looking for my wand again,” I barter, knowing that I'm asking the impossible, whereas Ron is not.  
  
There is no answer, and I am not surprised.


	3. And Finally I See

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Character Death, Implied past Weasleycest. First person POV. Paranormal elements.  
> Prompt: 050: Spade

Six months. We lasted six months before I had to dig this grave, before I had to lay his body in it.  
  
The cruelty of it smacks me in the face as I throw one of the last few spadefuls of earth back into place. He had grown happier. Colour had come back into his cheeks and when he smiled, Merlin himself couldn't have contested that the smile was meant.  
  
I drop the spade and drag my forearm across my brow, wiping away the rain which has collected there.  
  
The rain mixed with tears on my cheeks is next, smeared away by my fingers as my throat grows tight.  
  
Growing happier, it seems, drained him of the only energy he had left, and this morning, I woke up and realised that he would never wake up again. That he was with the spirits he knew were with us.  
  
He is with company, and I am alone. After the months of him in my bed, of deliriously soft kisses pressed into my throat when he was calm and content, of tears running down my chest when he was upset.  
  
The smell of him lingers in my nostrils, reminding me that I grew to know my brother in a way that I should never have, that in his fragile state more grew between us than was legal and maybe even sane.   
  
I can't stare at the mound of earth any more, I decide, and turn back to the house. Tonight I will shut everything down and apparate away from the memory of him. I will take his things and keep them with me. But I can't stay here.  
  
The kitchen is empty and cool. I tread mud onto the floor. I glance upwards to catch a flash of red hair disappearing into the poky hallway, before disappearing.  
  
“Oh _fuck_.”  
  
And then, all that I've tried to hold in bursts out, now that I can see the spirits. Now that I know they are there, just out of my reach.  
  
And that maybe, just maybe, they have come for me, too.  
  
 _-fin-_


End file.
